SEGUIER, Pierre, Chancellor of France, Duke of Villemor and peer of France, was born at Paris on the 29th May, 1588. He successively filled the offices of counsellor to the parliament, master of requests, keeper of the seals, and in 1635 was elevated by Louis XIII. to the chancellorship. In 1639 he quieted the troubles which had broken out in Normandy, and on the celebrated day of the barricades hazarded his life in the preservation of order. Twice he was deprived of the seals, viz., in 1650 and 1652, but they were finally restored to him in 1656, and he retained them till the day of his death. He was an admirer of Richelieu, whose policy he endeavoured to carry out, and distinguished himself as an ardent lover of literature. The Academy he took under special protection, at a time when it could not claim the patronage of royalty. He died at St. Germain-en-Laye, on the 28th of January, 1672, aged eighty-four years. Voltaire has eulogized his character by stating, that he was always faithful in a period when to be otherwise was a merit. In his youth Seguier was a member of the Carthusian order.—W. J. P.
SÉGUR, Louis Philippe, Count de, a distinguished diplomatist and writer, was born at Paris in 1753. Inspired with sympathy for the cause of American independence, he left France in May 1, 1782, and after a narrow escape from capture by English cruizers, entered the Delaware in September, and joined the forces under Rochambeau, with whom he continued till the end of the war. He returned to France in June, 1783, and in the following year was appointed ambassador at the court of St. Petersburg, and became a favourite with the Empress Catherine II. The result of his mission was a commercial treaty, ratified in 1787 between France and Russia, which conferred upon the former several advantageous privileges. During 1790 he represented France at the court of Berlin. Ségur was elected a member of the Academy in 1803, and in 1818 was called to the chamber of peers. He died in 1830. His works consist of "Theatre de l'Ermitage," published in 1798; a "History of the Principal Events in the Reign of Frederic William II., king of Prussia," 1800; a "Historical Decade, or a Political Review of Europe from 1786 to 1796-1801;" "Cartes Moraux et Politiques," 1821; a "Universal Ancient and Modern History," 1819; "Pensées, Maximes et Réfléctions," 1822; "Gallèrie Morale et Politique," 1823; and in 1826 he published his memoirs, souvenirs, and anecdotes.—W. J. P.
SÉGUR, Philippe Henri, Marquis de, Marshal of France, was born in 1724; commenced his military career in the wars of Bohemia, and was present at the battle of Prague; took part at the battles of Rocoux and Laufeld; in the latter he lost an arm. At the battle of Clostercamp, after receiving a bayonet thrust in the neck and three sabre wounds, he was made prisoner by the enemy. With the termination of the war he regained his liberty, and on his return to France was made inspector-general of infantry, and subsequently in 1780 minister of war. Upon the accession of Cardinal de Brienne to power Ségur retired from public affairs. He, however, fell under the suspicions of the convention who directed his incarceration in the prison of La Force. He was liberated by the first consul, who conferred upon him a pension of four thousand francs. He died in 1801.—W. J. P.
SEJANUS, Lucius Ælius, was born of an Etruscan family of the equestrian order, about 20 b.c. He early rose into favour with the future emperor, Tiberius, and became one of his most useful and unscrupulous instruments. Soon after the accession of Tiberius, he was invested with the important office of prefect of the prætorian guards. It was he who for the first time collected those dangerous soldiers into a single camp, a step fraught with the most fatal consequences to the peace and security of Rome. Sejanus continued to grow in favour with his master, from whom he received innumerable marks of honour and distinction. He obtained vast wealth, and his daughter Octavia was betrothed to Drusus, the son of Claudius, afterwards emperor. Unsatisfied by his good fortune, Sejanus now seems to have aimed at supreme power. In a.d. 23 he caused Drusus, the son of Tiberius, with whom he was at enmity, to be poisoned, removing thereby one of the obstacles in his path to empire. After a time he persuaded Tiberius to retire to a life of comparative seclusion at Capreæ, and to banish the dangerous Agrippina and her children, the representatives of Germanicus. A period of dark intrigue and dissimulation followed, during which Sejanus acted as the prime minister of the emperor during his absence from Rome. But Tiberius was not the man to be lulled into false security by his treacherous servant. While treating Sejanus with a semblance of the most perfect confidence, he secretly took every precaution against his designs, and at length a.d. 31, he sent Sertorius Maero to Rome, commissioned to assume command of the prætorian guards, and to read a letter from Tiberius in the senate denouncing Sejanus for high treason. Macro fulfilled his mission, and Sejanus perished at once with all his family amid the execrations of the people, not a single voice being raised to avert his downfall.—G.
SELDEN, John, an illustrious scholar, lawyer, and statesman, was born at Salvington in Sussex, 16th December, 1584. His father, John Selden, was a minstrel, and is said by Wood to have gained by his musical talent the affections of his wife, who was the daughter and heiress of the knightly family of Baker of Rushington in Kent. Young Selden was educated at the free school of "Chichester, and such was his proficiency that at the age of fourteen he was admitted a student of Hart hall, Oxford. After remaining there about four years, he repaired to London, in 1602, and commenced the study of law in Clifford's inn. In 1604, he removed to the Inner temple. At this period of his life he became intimate with several students who afterwards held the highest legal offices, and also with his celebrated contemporaries, Camden and Ben Jonson. He applied himself with such assiduity to his legal studies, that "in a few years," says Wood, "his name was wonderfully advanced not only at home but in foreign countries, and he was usually styled the great dictator of learning of the English nation." He speedily obtained a lucrative practice as a conveyancer and chamber counsel, but does not seem to have been much employed as a pleader. His earliest work, the "Analecta Anglo-Britannicon," was finished in 1607, but was not published till 1615. In 1610 appeared his "England's Epinomis" and "Jani Anglorum facies altera." In the same year he published an essay on "The Duel or Single Combat." He now became intimate with Drayton and Browne, as well as with Jonson, and in 1613, furnished the English notes to the first eighteen songs of Drayton's Polyalbion. In the following year appeared his treatise upon "Titles of Honour," which is still an authority upon that subject. His celebrated work, "De Diis Syris," was published in 1617; and his "History of Tithes" in the following year. He maintained the legal, but denied the divine right of tithes, and, in consequence, gave great offence both to the clergy and court. A host of answers and animadversions speedily appeared, and the author was ultimately summoned before the high commission court, and was obliged to express his regret for having published a work which had given offence. Selden now took a deep interest in the resistance of the patriotic party to the arbitrary measures of James I., and though not a member of the house was consulted by the commons respecting the protestation which they entered in their journals. The enraged and baffled monarch ordered him to be committed to the Tower, but by the interest of the lord keeper, Williams, he was set at liberty after being four weeks in the custody of the sheriff. In 1624 he was elected one of the members for the borough of Lancaster, and the same year, in consequence of his refusal to accept the office of reader of Lyons inn, he was fined by the benchers of the Inner temple, and disabled from being called to the bench. But the latter part of the order was rescinded in 1632, when he became a bencher of that society. In 1625 Selden sat as one of the members for Great Bodmin in the first parliament of Charles I.; and in the second parliament, in the following year, he took a prominent part in the proceedings against the duke of Buckingham. In 1628 he sat again for Lancaster, and by his great learning and intimate knowledge of the laws and constitution of the country rendered efficient aid to the patriotic party, especially in the preparation of the celebrated Petition of right. During the recess he quietly pursued his literary occupations, and gave to the world his "Marmora Arundeliana"—a description of the ancient marbles, which the earl of Arundel had recently brought to England—and two legal treatises. On the reassembling of parliament in January, 1629, Selden took a more active part than ever in resisting the arbitrary and illegal proceedings of the king, and on the dissolution of the parliament he was, in consequence, along with Sir John Eliot and other popular leaders, committed to the Tower, and was denied even the use of books and writing materials. After an imprisonment of eight months, the patriots were offered their liberty on condition that they should give security for their good behaviour. But this they refused to do. The severity of their confinement was, however, relaxed in 1631. Selden was liberated on bail through the influ-
